


Learning to be Okay

by Genemenom



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Canon won't give me what I want so I'll make it, Dadbastian is what I live for, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Not wetting in a sexy way tho, Panic Attacks, Parental - Freeform, Past Child Abuse, Platonic Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Vomiting, Wetting, parental Sebastian, references to CSA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 05:19:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15381513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Genemenom/pseuds/Genemenom
Summary: Sebastian wants to be a good butler and to better understand humans.Ciel needs an adult to take care of him and his emotions, when everything is scary.Takes place shortly after they have returned to the manor, but before Tanaka enters the picture again.





	Learning to be Okay

**Author's Note:**

> 'Ello! 
> 
> I think Sebastian being a mean douchebag demon who "likes to watch kids suffer" is hella lame. So I wrote this, because I keep getting parental feels from Sebastian, no matter what Yana says on twitter. 
> 
> Ciel has complicated feelings about Sebastian. And I'd like to think that Sebastian comes to feel something at some point too, a la Hannah from season 2. 
> 
> Dads are very important to me. As is recovery. :') 
> 
> Also Ciel wets his pants at one point, but it is n o t meant to be sexy. It's not explicit or made particularly gross, just a flashback and a somatic response to it.

Ciel Phantomhive… That is the name he bears now. The name of his brother. His brother, the healthy one, the charismatic one. The one who deserved to live.

The one who everyone would have wanted to come back.

The Spare had chosen to bear the name of Ciel Phantomhive. He wanted everyone to think he was Ciel. And everyone had indeed believed him.  
However, a small part of him had hoped that Aunt Ann, Aunt Frances, Uncle Alexis, Elizabeth, Edward, and Tanaka would at least have asked what had happened to The Spare.  
Though it probably made sense that they didn’t. The Spare had asthma. He was fragile and helpless. Shy and insecure. It only made sense that he would have perished, while Ciel would have been the one to persist.

If only he had been chosen instead. Perhaps Ciel would have managed to summon Sebastian.  
He honestly didn’t mind the thought of Ciel using his soul as a sacrifice, if it meant Ciel could live on.  
The Spare would have done anything, anything at all, to have his brother back.

But he couldn’t. Sebastian had said as much.  
“ _What has been sacrificed will never be returned._ ”  
So now The Spare was Ciel Phantomhive.

It would undoubtedly taking some getting used to for The Spare, but he was determined to be the Ciel that Ciel would have wanted to be.  
He did it for Ciel, Aunt Ann, Tanaka, and the Midfords. It was better, less painful, for them to believe Ciel was back.

It was the least he could do, when he had so cruelly, selfishly, disgustingly, sacrificed the person he loved the most to the Devil.

He was Ciel Phantomhive.

When Sebastian had rebuild the manor, he had recreated everything, including evidence that Vincent and Rachel Phantomhive had been blessed with twin boys the 14th of December 1875.  
But Ciel wanted to erase his past identity. All pictures showing the both of them had been taken down, his bed in their childhood bedroom had been thrown out, along with his toys, his clothes, his shoes. Ciel and he had always been given the same gifts, always two identical items. Now only a single copy of each of these childhood memories existed.

The Spare had died.  
Or, rather, The Spare had never existed in the first place.

Ciel would live on. The world needed him, and Ciel would make sure that those who did this to the Phantomhive family would be dragged to _Hell_.

* * *

 

He could feel their hands on him. He was being beaten, bruised, bitten, branded.  
A needle pushed into his veins to subdue him, to make him stop struggling so much.  
Even when he closed his eyes, he could still see them over him, under him, in his peripheral vision.  
Even if it was quiet, he could still hear their moans, their laughter, the screams of Ciel and the other children, begging for mercy, for help, for God, for it all to stop.

He wanted to die.

He was so cold. The sharp edges of the chain cuff cut into his ankle. More blood spilled.  
Finished for the day, he was thrown onto the floor, the burn on his back dragged on the ground, opening the blisters and making him bleed.  
Even more blood.  
A funnel was forcibly shoved far into his throat, as some kind of foul porridge was poured into his stomach. He wanted to spit it out, but the guards held their hands over his mouth until he swallowed.  
He was kicked back, hitting his head on the metal bars, as the guard grabbed Ciel and repeated the process.

Neither of them were allowed to die.

Because the monsters that kept them here seemed to favor Ciel and himself far more than the other kids, for some unknown reason.

“ _…Young master…_ ”

A distant voice spoke to him, but he didn’t recognize it. Did it really matter?

“ _… Can come back now…_ ”

All of the cultists were the same, their masks identical, all of them emitted the same stench of sweat, sex and blood.

“ _… Out of the cage now…_ ”

The owner of the voice was probably just the next in line to take advantage of him.

“ _…Safe, no one will hurt…_ ”

If he didn’t struggle, perhaps it would be over soon and he could go back to the cage with Ciel.

“ _…I have got you…_ ”

Ciel. Ciel who promised to protect him, surely they would get home soon.

“ _…I will protect you…_ ”

He wished so badly that he could protect Ciel as well.

But he was so powerless. Powerless to stop whatever the owner of the voice would do to him. He could do nothing but accept what was to happen next.

A loud, monotone sound grew in his ears. It drowned out the voice. Good. He preferred not to hear or see what happened next.  
He stared up towards the ceiling, at a statue of God himself, smiling, as if he was promising to protect his children.  
The God that hadn’t saved him, that left him to be saved by the Devil, of all things.

The Devil…

Wait a moment. What was happening?

Suddenly the pictures flashed before him with lightening speed.  
Ciel reaching out to him, yelling, a knife, blood, an earthquake, a mass of black fire shaping into a myriad of animals and beasts, a hand caressing his cheek, an excruciating pain in his eye that left him screaming.

“AAAAAARGGGG!!!”

The world came back into focus, Sebastian knelt in front of his chair, holding his hands.  
His butler looked at him with a peculiar expression. One that seemed a mixture of concern and amusement.  
Had Ciel not felt such paralyzing terror, he would have called Sebastian a right bastard for the “amusement”-part.

“Ah, there you are, Young Master,” Sebastian said with a polite smile, as if nothing had happened.  
But clearly, lots had happened.

Ciel was breathing hard through his gritted teeth. His entire front was soaked in some repulsive smelling substance.

Vomit.

Ciel had vomited down his own shirt.

Then he noticed his trousers was warmer and wetter than they should be.

He had wet himself.

He had vomited and wet himself in his father's work chair, as if he was an infant in need of a bib and diaper.

It was beyond humiliating. It was mortifying.

“Another memory from the past, perhaps?” Sebastian asked lightly, as he rose from his kneeling position, as he went to get something.  
Ciel found himself thankful for Sebastian acting casually. He wasn’t sure his ego could take being mock-comforted by his demon at the moment.

Not that there was much ego to take from, regardless.

Actually, he would really like to be comforted, if he was honest.

“I… I…” Ciel felt his eyes well over. This wasn’t the first time he had been in this position.

He would sometimes get sudden flashbacks, where he would feel the pain of them… them violating him, making him bleed, tearing him apart. The revolting taste as they shoved his face against their lips, their bodies, their...   
It all felt so real. He was so cold, so dirty, naked, the smell of the burning flesh of his back, scorched by red hot iron.  
It smelled like bacon. He couldn’t stand the smell of bacon any longer.

Ciel wasn’t sure why these flashbacks would happen. One moment he was sitting at his father’s desk in his office, a warm room, clean, fully dressed, and sipping a cup of hot tea.  
The next moment he was in the cage. Dirty, dressed only in his underwear, a fresh, scarlet bloodstain staining his bottoms.  
He felt himself sinking into the past once again, until a hand landed on his shoulder. Sebastian knelt in front of him once again, this time with a tissue, wiping his face clean of his wasted meal.

Ciel wanted comfort and security, wanted it desperately, dammit. Be it from real affection or from demonic play-pretend.

A loud sob broke free from the 10 year old’s throat, as he fell forward and gripped onto Sebastian’s shoulder, clinging to him as if his life depended on it.  
It felt like it did, in any regard.

A memory of how he had clung to his brother much in the same way before they were bought… perhaps, if he closed his eyes, he could pretend that the one he was hugging was Ciel, and not the demon that had eaten Ciel.  
  
Sebastian patted his back awkwardly, but said nothing. Not like Ciel would have at all.  
  
Not to mention that Sebastian was an adult. Ciel had been a skinny 10 year old.  
Ciel was here no more. All that he had left was a lie and a devil of a butler.

He cried harder.

"Sebastian, I'm, I- I am just so scared, all the time!" he choked out. "I can hear them, I can feel them, it all feels so, so real!"

Maybe he could pretend he was clinging to his father? The previous Earl Phantomhive had never been too good at comforting his kids, being a usual nobleman of his day. A little removed, but still loving. Yeah, that could work. Sebastian had the same height and build of Vincent Phantomhive too. Not to mention the same face, save for some slightly thinner brows and the lack of a beauty mark.  
  
He had never asked why Sebastian had chosen a face that resembled his father so, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.  
  
“I know sir, I know,” Sebastian spoke softly. “But it is over now. So you need not dwell on it. Let us try to ignore it, no?”  
Sebastian said it as if it was so easy. As if he chose the nightmares that haunted him day and night. _  
I don’t need dwell on it? He could at least_ try _to help me properly. As if it is so easy to just forget these things!_ Ciel thought bitterly. _Demons really don’t have any empathy for human emotions, huh._  
Damn. Ciel was so alone. He felt another wave of nausea, and he promptly vomited down Sebastian’s back.

The demon was somehow unfazed.

But Ciel was downright mortified. Had his ability to control his emotions been taken from him as well? 

His childhood, his innocence, his family, his brother, everything had been taken from him.   
Those who were left from before his 10th birthday surely hated him, and would be repulsed by him, should they ever find out the truth.  
He had no one. Absolutely no one, but Sebastian.

Ciel was spiraling. The truth of his situation was abundantly clear to him. Sobs and retchings struggled to win the battle for his breath, he felt dizzy. He couldn't get enough air. It felt worse than an asthma attack, he was drowning in blood, Ciel’s blood, Ciel being held up by black tar, by a demon made of black flames, by Sebastian…

Ciel threw himself off of Sebastian in renewed panic, he shook all over, he was soaked in vomit and urine, the world was spinning, it was blurry, he fell.

He wanted to die.

"Young Master." Sebastian's voice cut in. "Look at me. Look only at me." Ciel's eyes tried to focus, though it was difficult to see his butler's face through the panic induced fog.  
"My Lord, what do you have to fear? You're no longer with the cult. You're out." A wet tissue wiped his eyes and mouth.

"You... you did... to Ciel..." he whispered.

"Do you mean the part where I ate his soul or the part where I held up his corpse, sir?" That bloody devil had the gall to look at him with a completely unaffected facial expression. Not even as much as a raised brow.  
Ciel could punch him if he wasn't in the middle of a near-death experience.

"I... both, I guess..." What was he supposed to say? Ciel's current situation was a bizarre dichotomy. On one (very shaky) hand he craved the comfort and safety that Sebastian could theoretically provide, on the other (equally shaky) hand, he was terrified of the demon in front of him.

“My Lord, I know it is not in the nature of humans to let go of trauma, but it is hopeless to dwell on the past like this. You cannot change it, nor can you erase it,” Sebastian stated matter-of-factly.

“Easy for you to say! You’re not the one whose brother got _eaten!_ ” How dare that positively dense son of a bitch talk to him in that manner when _he_ was the master of the Phantomhive house, _he_ was the contractor!  
His butler and his demon had no right to tell _Ciel_  to just get over what the _demon_ himself had done!

“That is true. But I am the one who is responsible for you, and it is, frankly, irritating to have to go through this every da-“ was all Sebastian got out before Ciel had attempted to strike him, only to get his hand caught by Sebastian, before he could give his black clad butler a black eye.

Sebastian sighed, and instead took note of the mess that was their clothes and the chair. The clothes would need washing as soon as possible. As for the chair, he was sure it was going to be an absolute pain to get the stains out of the upholstery without the use of magic.

And the earl and his fit of hysteria. Really, what was it with humans? The past is and will always be the past. Why couldn’t they just focus on the future instead?  
The young earl had been home for about a month now. Exactly as long as he had spent with the cult. One days mourning per day spent there should be enough.  
  
Sebastian supposed he was the adult here. So his young contractor would probably need some help. But… what on earth was Sebastian supposed to do with him when he got like this?

In any case, Sebastian should get his young master into a bathtub, where he could soak his anger out and get clean while Sebastian changed his jacket and went to clean up the chair.  
However… he could add some lavender essential oil to the bath water. Lavender was calming, was it not?

**Author's Note:**

> Haha, so yeah. This is the first fic I've ever actually posted. 
> 
> English isn't my native language, so if there are some linguistic mistakes somewhere, please do point them out! And please tell me if there is any confusing sentences or just constructive criticism in general! :>
> 
> I have plans to make more, but I am slow at writing. Hopefully this will be a series!


End file.
